


Station #39

by ifrainfalls



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Apocalypse, M/M, Nothing after early Synchro arc happened here, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21689878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifrainfalls/pseuds/ifrainfalls
Summary: Scenes from subway station #39 in Heartland, over the three years since the invasion.
Relationships: Kurosaki Shun/Yuto
Kudos: 9





	Station #39

**Author's Note:**

> A collab with my friend Shy!! He's @itsdragonblade on twitter

“C’mon, hurry up! We don’t want to miss the train!” Shun tugs gently at Yuto’s hand and tries to pull him along and into the station. He had to reload everyone’s subway cards so they could pass through the gates and catch the train on time, but it seemed Yuto was far more excited about the giant poster of an upcoming Duel Monsters tournament than he was about going to the aquarium. Ruri had described to Yuto what she loved about it, having been taken there by Shun a month prior. The glittering scales of different fish, the scary looking sharks that would definitely gobble you up if given even the slightest chance, and the whales, who always sounded sad even though they looked like they were smiling. She had sparked Yuto’s imagination with her description, and it wasn’t long before they had (through no shortage of pleading) worn down Shun enough to agree to take them both for a visit. 

‘Where was that enthusiasm for the aquarium now?’ Shun wonders. It seems that for as excited as Yuto had been about their trip, it paled in comparison for his excitement over dueling. His eyes glisten as he looks up at the friendly looking duelist fanning out his cards in hand, like a peacock. Shun and Ruri both see Yuto’s wide eyes reflected in the glossy poster and go to stand by his side. 

“Cmon,” Ruri begins, “This tournament is next week, we can all watch it on TV together then. If we don’t hurry–” But her sentence is cut short; the rush of wind caused by the subway train’s arrival echoes loudly down the corridors to the entrance. There would be no way they’d make it now.

Yuto seems to realize it, and finally breaks his eye contact from the poster to look up at his companions. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make us miss the train!” His eyes still glisten, perhaps now from imminent tears. 

Shun puts a hand on his shoulder and sighs with a smile. “Hey, don’t worry. We’ll catch the next one. Those fish aren’t going anywhere.”

-

It was pure, dumb luck that they had all been together when the invasion began. They had all wordlessly decided that there would be no chance of any of them separating from one another — who knew when cell phone towers would go back up? Who knew if they’d ever see one another again? There were so many questions, and so little certainties; the assurance of each other’s presence became more valuable with each tremble of the roof and walls of the subway station. Shun holds the younger children close; he lets them hide under his coat, as if it were a bedsheet with the power to keep the monsters outside at bay. And for these long, terrifying moments that draw themselves into minutes, it seems to be working.

For a few weeks, they live underground. It doesn’t take very long for talk about parents and “going home” to cease completely. When the soldiers from the Academia first find the huddled refugees in the subway stations, they make quick and terrifying work of the bottlenecked evacuees - both duelists and non-duelists alike are targeted, and the once packed halls become empty - flooded only with pained faces on scattered cards. 

Shun, Ruri, and Yuto are some of the lucky ones. They were quick, small, and close enough to the emergency exits to have escaped before the bottleneck could be utilized effectively. Many more are not so lucky. Their screams echo through the halls as the children make their escape. Yuto thinks he sees someone as he runs, and his heart rises to his throat - but there is no one there save for the face of a friendly duelist on a poster, advertising a tournament that would never come.

-

“There’s no way she could be in a place like this. There’s only one entrance and exit; it’s practically a death trap.”

“I-... I know. But we’ve exhausted everywhere else and… It feels right. I don’t know why, but…”

The duo peer down the decrepit hallways, still shaking the long-ingrained and utterly ridiculous notion that a train’s lights might still peer back at them as they walk the tracks. 

“We’ve tried other stations around here already… we can’t walk all the way to the next ones; we’d be spotted the second the tracks go above ground. This is as far as we can get and still be safe…” Shun looks into the continuing darkness of the tunnel. He hated to admit that he had felt the same way as Yuto did about this station. It did feel right. Yuto was right, wasn’t he?

So where was Ruri? 

Yuto is surprised to see Shun so close, so suddenly. His hands are grabbing the shoulders of Yuto’s coat; Yuto can only tell they’re shaking because of how they feel – it’s too dark to see even that. It’s too dark to see Shun tremble in despair, but Yuto can hear his breathing hitch. It’s too dark to hear him cry; too dark to join in with him. 

-

The two of them walk in silence- it’s still louder than Yuto would care for; every time their feet hit the concrete, it echoes down the crumbling tunnel. It’s not often that they come down here: the ceilings are leaking water and groan with the weight of the earth above, but they had been nearly surrounded by soldiers and they decided that this was preferable to fighting their way out as they were. As it is, Yuto feels more on edge with each splash into the puddles by their feet. They’d already had to make several detours when their planned route turned out to be blocked, and he was more than ready to stop for the night.

When they arrive at the station, Shun climbs up onto the platform and then reaches down to help Yuto up, too. “Thanks,” Yuto mutters. Shun nods despite the pained look on his face, silently rubbing a bruise on his side. Neither of them are in great shape, but that’s nothing new. They find a corner on the platform that seems to have enough visibility and put their things down. They both wince when the flashlight they’ve been using flickers.

“Have we been here before?” Yuto wonders out loud. He’s got the strangest feeling of deja vu.

“Probably,” Shun responds, digging through their bags for the can opener. Yuto gets the feeling that even if he was having the same deja vu, he was trying to ignore it.

Yuto knows better than to wander, but he still can’t help but glance about the room, trying to place the feeling. The advertisements are all relics of a better time now, rotting away slower than the ideas they had represented. He still can’t quite place the memory until he glances over his shoulder and gets a look at a poster for a tournament- the date a few days after the invasion. It comes back to him then, the memory settling inside him like ash in his lungs. For half a moment, Yuto is 11 again, listening to the first dying screams he had ever heard. The aquarium is a foul smelling husk in a dangerous part of the city now, and all Heartland’s professional duelists have long since been hunted down. He understands in that moment why Shun won’t look around too closely. The walls are closing in on him, and despite himself, he tears the poster off the wall and lets it fall into one of the pools of condensation.

-

Any victory is hard-won in Heartland, but this one especially. Collecting duel disks from Academia soldiers, figuring out how to get past the ID lock, surviving each day while doing this – it all has its own cost. Whenever Yuto thinks about digging the ID chip out of a dead soldier’s hand for his disk, his head begins to spin. But there’s no choice but to keep moving forward, so he and Shun sit in the hallway of the subway station again, tired of running. In fact, he’s almost excited for what they’re about to do. An entirely new dimension, finding Ruri after all. It’s terrifying, but it’s their last sliver of hope.

Yuto fixes the modified duel disk to Shun’s wrist as they go over the plan in detail, his fingers lingering just a little too long over Shun’s hand. For a moment, he fantasizes about curling up against Shun’s side and shutting out the world for a little while, but there’s no time for a fantasy of the two of them.

“Find me as soon as you’re on the other side,” Shun repeats to him, fingers hovering over the controls.

Yuto nods, “I’ll find you.” To Yuto, there is nothing more unimaginable than leaving any of the three of them behind for good. His shoulder brushes Shun’s before he activates his own disk. The old subway station blurs and disappears into pure light.


End file.
